


Pennies

by websandwhiskers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Metaphysics, Mythology - Freeform, Other, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 08:25:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/websandwhiskers/pseuds/websandwhiskers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s what growing is – it’s pulling out the parts you don’t need anymore.  5x19 AU / fix-it.  Trippy like woah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pennies

The woman sitting at the edge of the water is dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale and beautiful.  She is also naggingly familiar, though Gabriel can’t quite place her.  There is a wry tilt to her lips.  The water is still, and if there is a sky, it’s dark – a dull, empty dark without stars, and the edges of the land and the water fade off into a black fog. 

The ground crunches beneath his feet, dead and barren and brown.  The girl throws a stone at the water, over and over, making it skip; he sees her throw it five, six times, but he never sees her pick it up, and after the fifth time be begins to suspect it’s the same pebble.  She tosses it away, but it never goes. 

“Penny for the ferry-man?” she asks, as he approaches.  Her eyes don’t leave the water.

“What ferry-man?” Gabriel asks, incredulous and unnerved.  “There’s no boat.  Also, last I checked, I wasn’t Greek.  And angels don’t have souls to get ferried to Hades.”  He pauses a minute, head tilting consideringly.  “Which, you know, makes this really odd.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t have a penny,” the girl responds, accusing. 

“This isn’t Hell,” Gabriel ventures, though with a certain lack of certainty. 

“I need a way _back,_ ” the girl protests sharply, turning to pin him with an accusing glare, “and you’re it.”  A bright red stain begins seeping through her shirt, just under her ribs.  It is the only thing with color anywhere that Gabriel can see.  “The ferry-man won’t come if we can’t pay.” 

 _I paid,_ Gabriel thinks, _I already paid,_ but he doesn’t say it because he’s not there anymore.

***

He’s in a house.  He thinks it’s a fairly ordinary house, at least so far as he knows – which isn’t very far.  Gabriel knows that he wouldn’t know normal if it bit him, which is perhaps not the best metaphor for the moment.  The house is quiet. 

Then the door slams open, bouncing against the wall.  He turns; he’s in some sort of sitting room, just out of sight of the entryway, so he hears the quick fall of feet before he sees the figure that comes crashing around the corner.  She’s maybe eight, all promise of long limbs and scraggledy hair, face Jolly Rancher sticky. 

“Mom!” Anna shouts.  “Mom, can I go play at Courtney’s house?  I can ride my bike over!”

Gabriel stares; Anna clatters right past him as if he’s not there, continuing on into the kitchen.  He hears the bare edges of a conversation, just voices, not words; he’s reasonably sure that Anna’s human mother hadn’t been there until the little girl ran in to find her.  Then Anna’s scampering back out past him, muttering, “Yes!” under her breath. 

Mrs. Milton appears in the kitchen doorway, blood gushing down over her chest from her slit throat.  “Wear your helmet!” Mrs. Milton calls out - which ought not to be possible, her vocal cords are severed. 

Anna stops and turns back to the woman whose body gave her flesh - the first time, anyway, before her grace burned it away and she came to him to ask for it back.  If eight-year-old, human Anna is aware at all that her mother is dying messily in front of her – or perhaps is already the walking dead – her face gives no indication.  She rolls eyes that are just a little too large for her face. 

“Yeah, yeah, brains work better still inside skulls,” Anna says, with the air of reciting an oft-repeated admonition. 

Gabriel is not much familiar with what is or isn’t appropriate for human children, but he’s seen a few brains parted from their skulls, and something about this child discussing such a thing so glibly is very, very disturbing – until he reminds himself that she isn’t being literal, not really.  _She_ doesn’t remember ever seeing any such thing.  It’s just silliness, to this Anna, who doesn’t know she’s leader of a garrison in Heaven, that she’s doled out more gory death than her still-developing brain has the capacity to remember. 

That she once let him slip past her guard and never said a word.  That she understood why he had to go. 

This Anna can’t tell him why she didn’t come to him when she found her own line, her own limit, why she couldn’t trust him in turn.  Then again, maybe it wasn’t about him at all – maybe it was about this, about the scabs on the skinny knees that stick out from beneath her shorts and the vague scent of artificial apple that hovers around her breath.  He wants to ask her what it felt like, to tear out her Grace – to have the nerve to start over so completely.  He can’t, because she did it, and therefore doesn’t know. 

“Love you, sweetie,” Mrs. Milton says, dripping blood onto the floor.

Anna’s eyes fix on Gabriel, suddenly not childlike at all.  “I know,” she says, and then she bursts into flames before he can do a thing to stop it.  He can never do a thing to stop it, Gabriel thinks. 

***

He’s in the Garden.  This is not the Garden that the Winchesters saw; if any human saw this Garden, they’d be driven instantaneously mad, if not caused to spontaneously _combust._

Gabriel finds it immensely peaceful, which is to say that he hates it. 

Michael is there, staring at the Tree – _that_ Tree.

Gabriel would like to take a hatchet to that Tree.  Metaphorically.  Really, it’s not quite a tree and nothing so mundane as a hatchet would so much as touch it, but the image still has a great deal of appeal. 

A tiny part of him wouldn’t mind taking a hatchet to Michael, either, if only to see him move.  That’s when Gabriel knows it’s time for him to go.  He doesn’t initially have a plan, really – or rather, the entirety of his plan is _be somewhere that isn’t here._

***

“Do you have a penny for the ferry-man?” the girl by the water – Ruby – asks. 

“I have nothing,” Gabriel says. 

“Then we’re stuck here,” she says.  “That’s great.  Really, that’s just fucking great.  Just  - just peachy.  I thought angels were supposed to be all powerful, and you can’t conjure a fucking penny?” 

Of course he can; Gabriel thinks, somewhere in the darkest corner of his mind, that he could probably conjure a whole new universe and go live there, if he wanted.  He can almost, but not quite, dare to think that he could do a damned sight better than his Father did. 

What he says is, “No.” 

“Great,” Ruby repeats bitterly.  Her stone goes skipping out across the water.  And again.  And again. 

***

The demon is wearing a little girl’s dress, a little girl’s body.  She’s setting up a tea set filled with something red.

“Sit,” says Lilith, in a sweet little voice that promises gory death if he disobeys.  Gabriel’s fairly sure he could take her, but just for the hell of it, he sits. 

For a moment, as he lowers himself awkwardly into a half-sized chair, the being in front of him isn’t a demon and it isn’t a child’s flesh, it’s a woman – dark-haired, dark-skinned, her features perfect and her body strong, her fingertips without even one callus and her fingernails still emerging new from their beds.  Her eyes are clear and open, intelligent but empty, waiting - innocent. 

Then she warps and twists and melts back down into the demon inside the little girl.  She pours him a cup of sloppy red.  It’s starting to clot. 

“You’re late to the party,” Lilith tells him, pouring counter-clock-wise around the table.  It’s set for four; Baldur’s head sits in the chair to Gabriel’s left.

“I didn’t know I was invited,” Gabriel suggests, trying to be glib about it. 

“Liar!” Lilith shouts, eyes momentarily flashing up to his.  “Your brother was here!  If he could come, so could you!” 

Gabriel looks around, but he doesn’t see Lucifer; just the shape of the woman (the first woman) that Lilith isn’t anymore, just for a second, out of the corner of his eye.  When he turns back to face her, she’s all demon again, settling the teapot back down at the center of the table.  It sloshes obscenely.

Baldur’s lips are moving, but no sound is coming out. 

“Drink,” Lilith orders. 

Gabriel lifts the blood to his lips and drinks.  It tastes like smoke and Jolly Ranchers. 

***

“For oblivion, this isn’t very . . oblivious,” Gabriel observes. 

Ruby snorts, as if he’s said something funny. 

“What sort of ferry-man works for pennies, anyway?” he asks.

“It’s symbolic, short bus,” Ruby snaps.  “Give me a penny, and we’re out of here.” 

“We,” Gabriel repeats back.  “And why would you do that?”

“Don’t get all warm and fuzzy about it,” she retorts  “You have something I need.”

“A penny?” Gabriel suggests, arching a brow. 

“I hate this fucking cryptic bullshit,” Ruby complains.  “It’d be easier if I could just explain it to you.”

Gabriel considers this a minute.  “And you can’t because . . ?” he asks.

“Because I don’t exist at the moment, dumbass,” Ruby says, rolling her eyes.  “They’re _your_ rules.”

***

He’s in a parking lot in the rain; half a dozen car alarms go off around him.  Then Castiel holds up a hand, and they stop.

Castiel walks past Gabriel, just as Anna Milton had, as if he isn’t really there.  He walks up to the body of the vessel their sister had been inhabiting.  The shadow of Sariel’s Grace is burnt into the pavement; a thin trickle of blood runs from her vessel’s neck. 

Her head turns, her eyes fixing on him. 

Castiel doesn’t notice.  If Gabriel sort of squints and tilts his head to the left, Sariel hasn’t moved at all, anyway. 

“I’m still here,” she says. 

“Where?” Gabriel asks. 

“You need a penny for the ferry-man,” she tells him.

***

“What if I don’t want to go anywhere?” Gabriel asks Ruby.  “What if I like it here?  It’s got its perks.  No annoying neighbors.”

“You’re full of shit,” Ruby says.

“Well, duh,” says Gabriel.  “Trickster?” 

“No,” Ruby responds flatly.  “There are no tricks here.  No tricks, no lies.  Just the dark and the water, and you can only go forward or back.” 

“Am I being as much of a cryptic douche to you as you are to me?” Gabriel asks.  “I mean, if you’re really here, are you getting some filtered version of me?  If I’m really here?” 

“Nothing dies,” Ruby says.  “Not really.  Light hits us and bounces and it goes on forever.  It never stops.”

“That’s pretty, but not really all that accurate,” Gabriel objects.

“Whatever,” Ruby says.

***

“Gabriel.  Gabriel!” 

Gabriel jerks into awareness being shaken, hands on his arms. 

Anna’s face is inches from his. 

“I was wrong,” she says, rushed, as if she doesn’t have much time.  “Tell them, okay?  Tell them I’m sorry.  Also, it’s not a _penny_.   Use your _head_.”

“Anna,” Gabriel manages, words choked out, thick and broken and the taste of ash on the back of his tongue.  “I would have gotten you out if I’d known they had you.  I would have – I would have gotten involved.  I _would_ have.  You’re my _sister._ I _loved_ you.” 

“Why are you using past tense?” Anna asks, rolling her eyes.  “Didn’t she tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Gabriel demands.  But then she’s gone.  The air smells like Jolly Ranchers and asphalt and rainwater. 

***

“What would happen if I jumped in there?” Gabriel asks, nodding at the water.

“Try it,” Ruby suggests, lips curling up at the edges.  It’s not an especially nice expression. 

***

“Do you know why we fell so easily before your brother?” Kali asks.  “We who are _gods?_ ” 

All of her arms are wrapped around him as they lay in a silken hammock in some dark, fragrant night somewhere.  It smells of jasmine and burning and sex, and Gabriel feels sated down to his bones (even if they’re not really _his,_ exactly), sated and home. 

It lasts for half a moment before splinters of inconvenient memory start to make themselves felt.  He pushes himself awkwardly up onto an elbow.  “You’re not dead,” he protests.  “How are you . . wherever here is?”

“I’m a _goddess,_ ” Kali says, in a tone that suggests this is painfully obvious and he’s being dense just to annoy her.  “I’m not _alive._ ” 

Gabriel considers that, decides it’s fair, and lays back down. 

“We know who we are, and what we aren’t,” she says.  “Lucifer can take what he does because he refuses to hear anyone who tells him he can’t.  We’re weakened because we hear.  We listen.  We’re of the world, bound to it, beholden to it.” 

“People prayed to me, you know,” Gabriel tells her.  “Okay, to Loki, but I heard them.  There were exactly eleven neo-pagan worshippers in Carthage, Illinois.  I heard them die.” 

“Loki isn’t known for being anyone’s savior,” Kali offers, placating, which isn’t very much like her, really, but then he remembers a few times like that.  Maybe more than a few.  Maybe he’s sorrier than he realized that he didn’t trust her enough to let her know who he really was, because maybe, maybe it could have been different.

“I’m not Loki,” Gabriel protests. 

“Aren’t you?” she asks, and there’s something horribly gentle in the way she says it.  “Trickster?” 

“Loki’s a god,” Gabriel argues.

“Exactly,” Kali says, and there’s a spark of burning in her eyes.

***

“Where is this?” Gabriel demands.

“Nowhere,” says Ruby, “Until you come up with a penny.” 

“A penny for the ferry-man,” Gabriel repeats. 

“Yep,” she agrees, popping the ‘P’ and throwing her stone out across the water that never ripples for very long, no matter how hard she throws it, and throws it again, and throws it again. 

“Who’s the ferry-man?” Gabriel says.  “And don’t tell me Charon.  This isn’t Hades, I’ve been there.” 

“Now that,” Ruby says, sighing loudly, “is finally a good question.” 

***

“It feels like pulling a loose tooth,” Anna Milton, age eight, tells Gabriel.  They’re seated at a wee pink table.  Lilith is pouring yet more bloody tea, ignoring the fact that it’s overflowing the cups and running down over the edges, dripping from the hem of the tablecloth.  “

“A loose tooth,” Gabriel says, incredulously. 

“Well, that and like carving your insides out with a fork,” Anna offers calmly, shrugging.  “But that’s what growing is – it’s pulling out the parts you don’t need anymore.” 

“Drink up,” says Lilith, horribly cheerful.

***

“I think I have a penny,” Gabriel says, very, very carefully.

Ruby stands; she drops her pebble in the dirt and it stays there.  She walks up to him, her face solemn. 

“You know who I am, don’t you?” she asks.  “What I did?”

“What are you going to do when you get back?” Gabriel asks, as answer. 

“I’m going to end it,” Ruby says. 

“You’re going to kill my brother,” Gabriel protests.  “You died for the big old pack of lies he sold you, and when you get back you’re going to kill him for it.”

“You _tried_ to kill him,” Ruby points out. 

And Gabriel opens his mouth to say, _no._ But he stops, because that’s not true, is it?  He tried.  He rushed at him with his goddamned, God _damned_ blade, the _real_ one.  He just missed.  He was slow.

He was late to the fucking party.  He was anywhere but there.

Ruby smirks. 

“You know, I hear that teeth can get _stuck_ ,” Gabriel stalls.  “I hear that pulling them _hurts._ ”

“Poor baby,” Ruby says, still grinning.  She holds up one hand; something flashes between her fingers, and Gabriel tastes copper on the back of his tongue.  “Penny?”

***

There’s a figure between them when Lucifer turns; his blade plunges not into Gabriel, but into Ruby, who is shorter, and takes it just above her left breast.  Standing behind her as he is, Gabriel can’t see her face.  He can see Lucifer’s, though.  He can see the utter shock as Ruby’s hand disappears into his chest. 

It’s not an archangel’s blade, but then, it’s not his Grace she’s reaching for. 

“Poor, poor baby,” Ruby’s saying, despite the blood bubbling up through her lips.  “Your Daddy didn’t love you like he should.  Guess the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”  And then she pulls. 

Lucifer falls.  The air smells like pennies.  Ruby staggers; Gabriel regains enough equilibrium to catch her before she hits the ground.  She smiles at him, her teeth bloody. 

“He didn’t know I could do that,” Ruby confides in a harsh, gurgling rasp.

“No shit,” Gabriel agrees, too stunned to feel anything else just yet, though he knows it’s looming and he’s not going to be best pleased when it hits.  “How the hell -”

“It’s all baby teeth and pennies,” she chokes out, then coughs; her blood is soaking hot into his shirt.  “Would you fix me already?” she demands.  “Geez, some god you are.” 

 _Who’s going to fix me?_ Gabriel thinks, as a tiny stretch of will knits rent tissues and weaves nerves and sinews back together.  Lucifer’s vessel is an empty, burnt-out husk just behind her and Gabriel thinks, apropos of nothing, that he’d still really, really like to take a hatchet to that Tree.  Instead he helps his brother’s wayward creation to her feet. 

***


End file.
